[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so very much for your outstanding essay-post, dearest sister in Christ!

And dear hosepipe, your remark about "2+2=4" directly responds to tacticalogic's objections about Newtonian mechanics being stable for so long.

More specifically, 2+2=4 in base 10 - but 2+2=8 in base 3 etc. Likewise, even today Newtonian physics will get you around the planet and solar system quite well (classical level.) But if you want to look or go further, you'll need Einstein. Or if you want to delve deeper, you'll need quantum mechanics.

But physicists like other "hard science" investigators - and mathematicians - are careful to lay out their axioms or presuppositions. Einstein's Relativity takes a four dimensional space/time continuum as an axiom. Likewise, high energy particle physicists presuppose the quantum mechanical level rather than the classical or astronomical level.

But Darwin, as betty boop describes, did not define his subject, what life "is." To this day, biologists rarely speak of anything more than what life "looks like" even though that is their field of study, whatever it "is."

By comparison, physicists and mathematicians who are involved in biological systems investigations do seem to care a great deal, e.g. Rosen, Pattee. Indeed, I suspect the greatest strides in biology will come about when biologists understand and accept the mathematical implications, i.e. the Newtonian paradigm does not support the circular model of living organisms. Function (final cause) cannot be ignored.

[tacticalogic]

But physicists like other "hard science" investigators - and mathematicians - are careful to lay out their axioms or presuppositions. Einstein's Relativity takes a four dimensional space/time continuum as an axiom. Likewise, high energy particle physicists presuppose the quantum mechanical level rather than the classical or astronomical level.

But Darwin, as betty boop describes, did not define his subject, what life "is."

Darwin took the existence of life as axiomatic. Newton did not define what mass, space, and time were, and where they came from.

[betty boop]

... your remark about "2+2=4" directly responds to tacticalogic's objections about Newtonian mechanics being stable for so long.... More specifically, 2+2=4 in base 10 — but 2+2=8 in base 3 etc. Likewise, even today Newtonian physics will get you around the planet and solar system quite well (classical level.) But if you want to look or go further, you'll need Einstein. Or if you want to delve deeper, you'll need quantum mechanics.

Oh so true, dearest sister in Christ! Which is why it's important to know which "base" is being invoked. For both 2+2=4 and 2+2=8 are truthful mathematical statements, though they superficially appear to be contradictory.

And I so agree with your observation: "the Newtonian paradigm does not support the circular model of living organisms. Function (final cause) cannot be ignored."

Thank you so very much for your outstanding observations!